News

Apple taps TSMC for next-generation mobile processors

By Charles Starrett ● Friday, September 16, 2011

Apple has signed a foundry partnership agreement with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), according to a new report. Citing industry sources, Digitimes reports that under the new agreement, TSMC will use its 28nm and 20nm process technologies to produce Apple’s next-generation CPUs. Reports linking the two companies dateback to as early as June, as tensions between Apple and A5 manufacturing partner Samsung became increasingly evident. The report goes on to state that Apple and TSMC have not yet discussed backend manufacturing, and suggests that Apple may have TSMC and other dedicated packaging and testing houses split the orders due to TSMC’s limited backend services capacity.